Razer Blade gaming laptop launches, but the real story is the buzz behind it

It was a scumbag move, but in the end the sheep will still buy it. And so will I.

When PC game peripheral maker Razer put the word out earlier in the week that something big was coming, speculation rose. It wasn’t necessarily about the potential product, it was about the message itself. “PC gaming is not dead.”

Gamers and bloggers rallied around the message excitedly. People started wondering what it meant. Was there a battle coming? Was a revolution starting? With the ominous messaging style used by Anonymous when they declare things such as taking down Facebook on November 5th, Razer sparked interest and put their brand on the map.

In the end, it was to reveal a gaming laptop, what they call the first of its kind. You can check out the specs on HotHardware, but let’s talk about the marketing campaign itself.

Mission accomplished. Everyone’s talking about it. Granted, much of the discussion is negative. Any time there’s hype built up it’s destined to get some negative feedback, but buzz is buzz. People who had never heard of Razer before know their name now. People who anticipated big news in the PC gaming world may have been disappointed but the announcement, but many of them are also going to buy the laptop itself.

It proves a point. If you have something relatively unique, go bold. It doesn’t matter if you get images like this popping up on Reddit:

There may be some people annoyed, but there’s going to be a lot more sales that come out of this relatively-inexpensive campaign than if they had put out a press release and bought advertising on gaming sites. They created buzz. People are talking about them. Gamers are talking about them. Gamers who have money might gripe about how this was such a poor launch, then go out and buy the device.

In marketing, particularly in gaming marketing, it’s all about hype. Razer did it about as well as anyone could have done on a limited budget. They made people upset, and it’s going to work.